The present disclosure relates generally to the offering of items in an electronic environment, and in particular to selecting between various offers for an item to present to a customer in the electronic environment.
As an ever-increasing amount of purchasing decisions are made electronically, the competition among online retailers, merchants, and other such entities is increasing accordingly. The competition not only relates to attracting and retaining customers to a particular merchant or marketplace, which can be more challenging in an electronic environment that in a traditional brick-and-mortar environment, but there is also competition between retailers who wish to have their items included or featured on various Web sites or other electronic marketplaces where the same item might be offered by multiple entities.
Various online retailers and/or electronic marketplaces, for example, have sites where a retailer offers items for electronic purchase from that particular retailer. An electronic marketplace may offer items for consumption (e.g., sale, rental, lease, etc.) from various retailers. A retailer's offer is prominently featured on a page containing or displaying that item, as will be referred to herein as a “detail page,” when a user searches for, or navigates to, a specific item. The detail page may have, for example, product information and reviews about the item. A marketplace may offer items from a retailer associated with the marketplace as well as by other retailers. For example, a merchant or retailer that operates an electronic marketplace might not always carry an item, or have the item in stock, such merchants, referred to herein as “first party merchants,” also display offers from other merchants, herein referred to as “third party merchants,” in less prominent areas of the detail page, or on another page to which a customer can be directed. The term merchant as used herein refers to any entity capable of offering an item for consumption in an electronic environment. A first party merchant also can have an arrangement where third party offers are displayed in less prominent areas even when the first party merchant currently offers the item for sale. While the retailer might lose out on the sale by showing these third party offers, the retailer may have, for example, an agreement with the respective third party merchant whereby the retailer gets a percentage of the sale price or other such fee for directing the customer to purchase the item from the other entity. However, among other potential complications, determining which offer from the various merchants is selected to be presented in a prominent portion of the user interface can be challenging.
Accordingly, it is desirable to improve the process for presenting such offers to a customer. It also can be desirable for the process to be beneficial to first and third party merchants, and to promote competition between the third party merchants to improve the overall offerings available.